Rue
by Broken Gold
Summary: Rue is regret, rue is poison, rue is pain and rue is completely necessary right now. HamletxOphelia.


**Disclaimer: I am alive and therefore not Shakespeare.**

**Rated T for reference to sex.  
**

**Written as an experiment in style and also as an excuse to write about one of my favorite plays ever. Of all time. Just saying.**

**You probably want to look at this if you're confused by the significance of the rue: ****http:/www. sisterzeus. com/rue****. htm**

**Just take the spaces out first.**

**I've reached the ultimate nerd level, guys. I'm writing a Shakespeare fanfiction that I looked up the symbolism of flowers for.

* * *

**

When He first speaks to you, first introduces himself, his smile takes your breath away. He is charming, witty and handsome. A student. He grins at you.

"Hamlet."

You smile sweetly and look up at him through your thick lashes, the way you've seen your older cousins do with boys before.

"Ophelia."

He winks at you.

* * *

What the two of you are doing now, so many years later is wrong.

It's_ so_ wrong.

It's everything everything everything that your father and brother have warned you about and you should stop it now and go back to being the good, graceful, virtuous girl that they still think of you as even at this very moment as the two of you lie alone in His chamber after Things You Oughtn't To Be Doing with your arms wrapped around one another his hand trailing through your long hair.

But it's so, _so_ right.

The romance doesn't stop after one night as your father and brother insist it will. In fact there is still kissing and hugging and shockingly, shockingly, shockingly he says it first.

"I love you."

And just like that you're even further gone than you were before and you're half expecting to end up out of your mind.

Just half expecting.

You should always realize when things are too perfect.

* * *

When you're ordered to stop seeing Him, you can feel the world falling away. You want to protest. You want to say no.

You want to do anything. Anything, but listen to them.

You raise your head high.

You open your mouth to speak and then, _then_-

You give in as you always do.

* * *

At first you don't know what hurts the most. The arguments, the insults- His mind starts crumbling to pieces in front of you. At the beginning you wrote it off as grief, but now the madness is obvious.

He mocks your lack of virtue, questions your faithfulness.

_It can't get worse._

You should know better than to think such thoughts.

* * *

You feel So Very Alone.

You've kept all his letters, as hard as it is to deny him. You have parts of them memorized so that you can repeat them when things get to hard (_I love thee best, O most best, believe it_) and parts of them that make you want to cry, want to scream, want to yell _yell_ YELL! at your father, at your brother at anyone and everyone who will listen.

It's becoming harder to deal with by the day,

You keep your mouth locked shut. Your father has the key. Sometimes you feel like you can see it hanging round his neck on a delicate silver chain.

You think that maybe, if it was possible, he would really keep your voice in such a way.

(_Never doubt I love_)

How can you_ not_ doubt it?

* * *

You're contemplating something very important one day.

It's been a while since you and Hamlet last participated in Acts That Young Ladies Were Meant to Avoid and you sit in your bed staring at the sheets.

It's also been a while since they've been stained red.

You frown, shake your head, rise to prepare for the day. You step into your favorite dress. A maid comes in to help you with the laces.

Your eyes widen in horror and sudden realization.

The dress is only a little bit too tight.

* * *

When your father makes you a spy, you think that maybe the silver lining in this is that you and Him will finally be allowed to be together.

Someone should have slapped you then and there for being so hopeful.

"I loved you not."

The newly shattered shards of your heart are sharp. You can feel them stabbing into you.

"Get thee to a nunnery."

This isn't right. You should be back to what it was before. Back to kissing and hugging and sweetness and Things You Oughtn't Be Doing and gentle smiles and _IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou_s and-

And not this.

_Anything_ but this.

* * *

At the play you sit with Him (even after his stupid comment makes you feel nervous and fluttery and then broken and rejected all over again), because you're a stupid, _stupid_ girl and you're so in love it hurts.

He asks what you thought he meant.

"I think nothing, my Lord."

He's clever (as always), but this time His wit makes you cringe. It makes you want to cry.

When He makes a comment about the short life of a woman's love you want to wheel around to hit Him, to kiss Him, to do _something_, because whywhywhy doesn't He know how you feel about Him?

You bite your tongue hard and focus on the play.

You later wish you hadn't.

* * *

In one night you are both freed, frozen and crushed.

Your father is gone. You can't believe it. You're so sad, you're so sad, you're so- No.

_No_.

You open your mouth and scream, just because you can.

The news of your father's death having resonated. You stop to dwell on it's reasoning.

_He_ killed your father.

He's going to die now.

And something in you, the last strand of sanity, of Ophelia, of grace and goodness and keeping appearances snaps.

_**Snaps**_**.**

_SNAPS.

* * *

_

You can't handle it.

You don't think you really want to.

You catch sight of yourself in the mirror. Your eyes are wild and your grin is c-c-c-c-crazy.

You stretch your lips even further.

Then you start to sing.

You sing to His mother, to His mother's eyes, to His eyes in His mother's face. You sing to the ladies of the court, to the king, to the flowers you pick as you dance dance dance through the fields on your shoeless feet.

The flowers all mean something when you give them away.

Rosemary. Remember.

Pansies. Ponder.

Fennel for healing. You need to heal.

Collumbine means foolishness, because that's what you are are are, you silly, stupid, crazy girl.

And the rue.

The rue is the one, the only one, that you keep for yourself.

Rue is regret, rue is poison, rue is pain, rue is….

You place a hand on your stomach. The world fades back into perspective slightly as your hand brushes the small, nearly imperceptible bump.

Rue is necessary now.

You break your reverie and give away your last set of flowers. Daisies in the place of violets. You pass away innocence instead of love.

* * *

When the branch breaks. You fall.

You hit the water with a splash and the cold shocks you out of your state of insanity for a moment. Just a moment.

The shore is an arms length away from you. You could reach out and touch it. Pull yourself to safety.

You fold your hands together and close your eyes letting yourself sink into the water. Something brushes your cheek as it floats away. The rue has come out of your hair.

You delicately grasp it and then return your hands to their position. You _need_ the rue.

There is a thick, weighty, unpleasant sensation. Your lungs are full of all the wrong substances. Your dress is gracelessly tugging you downwards.

Your hair fans out behind you and the flowers float out of it delicately.

You clutch the rue tighter.

When you appear in the blackness you're clothes don't feel wet or weighted down and your lungs are clear. Your long black hair tumbles down your back. You look around.

You look for Him.

He doesn't appear.

There is silence for what you think is a minute, but you're fairly sure could've been an hour as well.

And then a name in the darkness.

"Ophelia."

Your name.

It's not Him. It's your father. Your father who appears in front of you with wide eyes and an outstretched hand.

Your father who everyone blames for your madness.

Your father who isn't Him.

Your father. Your father is the reason He's_ gonegonegone_.

Your father with no key on a silver chain around his neck.

A name.

"Polonius."

Your cold, cold voice.

You turn away from him and walk into the darkness.

* * *

You wander.

(For Weeks? Seconds? Years?)

There is nothing but blackness.

He is still _gonegonegone_ and you are still So Very Alone.

It's maddening.

Your wandering stops for a moment.

You laugh.

* * *

Later (how much later?) you are still wandering, still seeing nothing. Your bare feet still press upon the Solid But Imaginary ground. There is still an echoing, echoing, _echoing_ silence.

And then you hear it.

"Ophelia?"

The same name as before.

"Ophelia."

Your name.

"Ophelia!"

_His_ voice.

"Hamlet!"

There is rushing and racing and running and hands in hair and kisses and whispers and gasping and _IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou_s and it's what you wanted it's what you've waited for. He's here. It's Him. You're here.

"Ophelia."

Where _is _here?

"Hamlet-"

He cuts you off. He's speaking fast. He can't believe he's found you and how can it be possible and he was at your funeral and-

Oh.

_Oh_.

"Dead." It's more of whisper than anything, but this is something you have to stop and think about.

When He halts his speech He looks at you. His piercing eyes are filled with uncertainty. He nods. You stare.

"Ophelia?"

A pause.

"That makes more sense than it has a right to."

Silence.

A quiet kiss.

Two smiles.

* * *

**So, yeah. Ophelia was pregnant guys, but then she went insane, so that kind of sucked.**

**There isn't much credible evidence for Ophelia being pregnant, but the theory springs from the fact that rue used to be used to create miscarriages. (It was very dangerous.) Also, I thought it would be cool and plot twisty and if I ever got to play the part (cross your fingers for me, guys) I would perform it that way.**

**Not that the audience would know, but I would feel special.**

**Review please.**


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